Today, President of Latvia Egils Levits had an online meeting with Mārtiņš Kazāks, Governor of the Bank of Latvia (LB). Meeting focused on macroeconomic forecast of Latvia, need to invest European Union (EU) support funding in a smart manner and initiatives of the Bank of Latvia towards national sustainability.
Governor Kazāks told President Levits about last year’s GDP, financial impact of state support programmes on economic development, labour market and domestic consumption. Both officials were optimistic about the expected economic recovery forecasted by the LB this year and next year bringing economic growth back to Latvia. According to Governor Kazāks, envisaged financial support from EU’s recovery facility and national budget should strengthen the economy and wasting of these resources should be avoided.
President of Latvia and Governor of the Bank of Latvia agreed that it is necessary to invest in people’ s knowledge and new skills, innovation and sustainability. President Levits and Governor Kazāks stressed the need to implement structural reforms in public administration – more emphasis should be put on horizontal cooperation between line ministries, political accountability for sectors under supervision of several ministries at the same time. Bank of Latvia plans to publicly present its most recent national economic forecast tomorrow.
LB expert initiatives towards sustainability-oriented economic planning were one of the key topics discussed during the meeting. President of Latvia praised the central bank for its programme. He welcomed the idea of holding broad public consultations with society, politicians and business owners to decide what Latvia needs in terms of sustainable economic development and how it can be achieved in various sectors. Central bank’s analysis suggests that fragmented sectoral policies and too much focus on short-term planning are the main sources of contradicting views that do not allow balancing of various sustainability elements.
Both officials underlined that Latvia must put more focus on its climate and environmental protection challenges and strive for broader public support for Latvia’ s long-term needs and benefits of becoming a green nation in truest sense of the word.
Mārtiņš Kazāks told President of Latvia about changes in the central bank law currently debated in the parliament. Egils Levits expressed his support to the idea of fast-tracking LB’s proposals on composition of bank’s council. These amendments would allow LB to continue gradual transition towards eventual merger with Financial and Capital Markets Commission without waiting for the whole package of Bank of Latvia Law being adopted.